"WE COULD rightfully use the name of Stuart in
recognition of our proud Scot ancestor, but we choose to be known by the
name given our family by the Cherokee Indians," James Butler Bushyhead
said. He and his brother are members of a family whose name is associated
with adventure, romance, achievement and suffering throughout more than
200 years of American Indian history. The St. Louisans are grandsons of
a famous Cherokee Chief. The other grandson is Jack S. Bushyhead, of 12
Conway Springs Drive in Chesterfield, MO. He is an athletic director in
the Parkway School District. James Butler Bushyhead and his family live
at 31 Portland Drive in Frontenac, and he is executive vice president of
Moog Industries, in St. Louis. James Butler served as a special agent
with the FBI in World War II. Jack served in the Southwest Pacific
theater.

Before the years of the American Revolution. Capt. John Stuart, a young
Scot nobleman with the British army, came to the Colonies as an Indian
agent. He married a Cherokee maiden and lived the rest of his life among
her people.

[ACCORDING TO Indian custom of giving names based on
physical characteristics, the young officer was called "Bushyhead" in
recognition of his very large crop of curly red hair.]

A series of "broken peace pipes" brought the Bushyhead name into
prominence during following generations - a period of unhonored treaties,
exploitation, land grabbing, and finally the forced exile of an entire
people. The Removal Act of 1830, signed by President Andrew Jackson
argued that "no state could achieve proper culture, civilization, and
progress, as long as Indians remained within its boundaries". Jackson
ordered that the Five Civilized Tribes, the Cherokees, Creek, Choctaws,
Chickasaws and Seminoles, must move from the southern states to the Indian
Territory, now known as Oklahoma - a word that means "red people". It was
solemnly sworn in a "permanent treaty" to be the Indian's Promised Land
"for as long as grass grows and water flows" - which turned out to mean
until the white man wanted more land.

Jackson's attitude toward the Indians could be summed up in his words:
"Humanity weeps over the fate of the Indians, but true philanthropy
reconciles the mind to the extinction of one generation for another" ....
so why not the extinction of Indian tribes to make room for other people?

THE CHEROKEES, about 16,000 in number, put up the
greatest resistance and were the last to be evicted. They were not
nomads, as were many other tribes. They loved their native hills and
valleys, streams and forests, fields and herds. They enjoyed established
houses and communities, and had learned to "talk on paper" like the white
man. Many had accepted the white man's God, and they had translated the
Bible into Cherokee language. The Cherokees had adopted a constitution
asserting that they were a sovereign and free nation, and consequently
were recognized by world powers.

A treaty with the United States preserved rights to their homeland in
parts of Tennessee and Georgia, but when gold was discovered in Georgia,
the state's proclamation that "all laws, orders, and regulations of any
kind made with the Cherokee Indians are declared null and void" resulted
in a horrendous land-grab and then in a death march which is one of the
saddest and most disturbing events in America's so called manifest
destiny. "One fourth of the Cherokees perished as they were first herded
into stockades and then "set toward the setting sun" in cold, hunger,
illness, and in complete desolation.

The Army commanded some of 13 separate groups, while others were hired out
to contractors who were paid $65 by the Government for food and medicines
for each person in their care - money that was often not used for its
intended purpose. Two of the detachments traveled by river while the
others made their miserable way by land across Tennessee, Kentucky,
Illinois and Missouri. One detachment was led by the Rev. Jesse
Bushyhead, a grandson of the Scot captain and his Cherokee wife. Young
Jesse had been brought up within the culture of the Indians but at the
same time subjected to the white man's civilization. He attended mission
schools and then a theological seminary, where he was ordained a Baptist
minister and served his own people as a missionary. He was also a gifted
interpreter and became a leader among the Cherokees in their struggle
against the white man's intrusion.

In late 1838, the Rev. Bushyhead gathered his family and followers
together and started out "on the trail where they cried". Those who think
Indians don't cry are not familiar with official reports of the "Great
Removal". Although the six-month ordeal was extremely difficult, this
group fared better than many others. The minister's party of about 1000
was strongly religious and maintained regular services throughout the long
march. Arriving in the Oklahoma Indian Territory, the leader reported
that "82 of our people were left by the side of the road - the others
sustained by the white man's Great Spirit".

REPORTS FROM earlier groups making the 1000 mile march
contained such starkly revealing messages as: "Cholera broke out and death
was among us hourly" and: "489 persons from 800 arrived". The log of a
detachment which traveled by water reported: "Three hundred and eleven
persons drowned when an over loaded flatboat capsized". One of the 82
deaths reported by the Rev. Bushyhead was that of his 17-year old
daughter which occurred shortly after the party had crossed the
Mississippi River near Cape Girardeau, Mo. Because of the ice-choked
waters, the crossing it self took nearly a month.

In the Trail of Tears State Park, in Cape Girardeau County, a memorial
monument was dedicated in 1961 to: "Princess Qtahki, daughter of Chief
Jesse Bushyhead -- one of several hundred Cherokee Indians who died here
-- in the severe winter of 1838-39". Actually, according to documented
evidence, the inscription is misleading. The girl could not have been a
princess since her father was not a chief but a minister. The Bushyhead
who did become a Cherokee chief was only a lad of 12 when he accompanied
his parents on the long journey that was the Trail of Tears.

The St. Louis Bushyhead descendants were aware of the inaccuracy when they
attended the dedication, but according to one, "We had not been consulted,
only invited to the ceremony, and we had a hard time keeping our father
quiet about the facts". These were nice people who were doing such a nice
thing in memory of our family, and we are grateful. We accepted the
tribute on behalf of all the Cherokees who suffered and died during their
sad journey. And if there are those who want to think in terms of a
mythical princess, well - it's often difficult to separate legend from
fact and sometimes legend becomes more appealing.

IN THEIR new home, the displaced tribe set to work to
attack the raw frontier by building homes, schools and churches. They set
up a government and named their capital Tahlequah still the cultural
center of the Cherokees and the source of documented evidence of their
history. The Indians were well on their way in the formation of a new
nation when the agony of the Civil War descended upon them. Although the
Cherokees fought with both the North and the South, they were officially
aligned with the Confederacy, which all but surrounded them. Then, too,
the South had promised that when the war was over they would be permitted
to form an all-Indian state. But when the North emerged as victors, the
Indians, like the South, were soundly penalized. More than half their
lands guaranteed by the "perpetual treaty" was taken from them and what
was left was war-scorched earth.

The leader most responsible for rebuilding the post war Cherokee nation
was the minister's son, Chief Dennis Bushyhead, who guided his people
between the years 1879 and 1887. He had attended Princeton University for
two years and then joined the '49ers in the gold rush to California, after
which he returned to enter Cherokee politics. His first wife was a sister
of the mother of Will Rogers, and his second was a grandniece of the famed
Commodore Oliver Perry, both part Cherokee.

"The Chief was almost 60 years old when my Father was born", the present
James Butler Bushyhead said. "Historians often speak of him as a wealthy
man but I don't know where his riches were, or are. When I married I had
$1000 and my wife was in debt $500. What we have we made on our own, but
the Bushyhead's were all provided with a sound education".

The son of Chief Dennis, James Butler Bushyhead, left Indian Territory to
attend the University of Missouri, He married a girl from Stephens College
and remained in Missouri, and that is how two grandsons of a Cherokee
Chief came to make their home in the St. Louis area. "Our father enjoyed
a bonanza just before he died," son, James Butler said. "For 20 years the
Cherokees had pushed litigation against the U.S. for what they considered
just payment of part of their land known as the Cherokee Strip, which the
government had forcibly `bought' for $1.27 an acre. In 1963 the
Government agreed to pay an additional $12,000,000 to the Cherokees and
their descendants who had occupied the controversial territory. My
father's share was only about $300, but for him it was a great moral
victory."

THE INDIAN TERRITORY and the Cherokee Nation became only
something that once existed when Oklahoma became a state in 1907, and the
Indian people found themselves forced to abandon their age-old practice of
common ownership and to begin to live according to the white man's rules
of private enterprise. For some it worked and for some it didn't. Today,
as is the case with other nationals, there are both rich and poor.

Following the year of the sale of the Cherokee Strip, a New York newspaper
reported: "Five Cherokees have come east to attend a class reunion at
Princeton University, bringing with them $7,000,000 to invest on Wall
Street". And the 'honorary chief of the Cherokee people today is W. W.
Keeler, president of the Phillips Petroleum Co".

"Although countless Indians have been assimilated by other races, there
are still those of pure blood in Oklahoma, and many of them are poor",
James Butler Bushyhead said. "The term 'part Cherokee' is a common one
today and actually dates back to the coming of the white man. For
example, our family has the name and the heritage of prominent Cherokee
leaders, but we can't actually claim much Indian blood since from the very
beginning our ancestry was mixed with the white race. British subjects
who came to the New World and married Cherokee women usually chose to cast
their lot with the natives, and the Cherokees were one of the few tribes
that encouraged marriage with non-Indians."

Robert Bushyhead, the son of James Butler, and presently a student at
Southern Methodist University, said, "I seldom mention the fact that my
great-grandfather was a Cherokee Chief. Nobody would believe it, and
besides, what difference does it make?" THE OLDER
descendants say they had much the same attitude when they were younger.

Jack Bushyhead said, "My grandmother the Chief's wife, used to want me to
sit at her knees for hours while she tried to tell me stories about our
people. I wish that I had listened, but at that time it didn't seem
important. But as I grow older I am more interested in preserving our
heritage, not particularly for myself, but out of respect for those who
were my people. I don't think of myself in terms of being an Indian", he
intoned, "but I'm conscious of things that pertain to them. For example,
I've noticed in movies and on TV that when white men win a battle it's
called a great victory; when Indians win one it's called a massacre. I
think of myself as being strictly American, which I am, literally,"

James Butler Bushyhead said, "Of course I'm aware - and proud - of our
Cherokee heritage. When some of our friends let go with pointed Indian
'arrows' the best thing I can think of to say is that in those earlier
days the Indians should have had stricter immigration laws. That would
have taken care of the whole problem". On a more serious note, he asked,
"Do you think the current land and oil boom in Alaska, as it involves the
Indians and Eskimos, might turn out to be a parallel to what happened to
the Cherokees - another forced Trail of Tears"?

Mrs. Elizabeth Mulligan is a free lance writer who lives
in St. Louis County with her three teen-age children.